Day 1: Canada
Trip Start
May 25, 2008
1
2
12
Trip End
Jul 30, 2008
St John's,
Newfoundland,
Canada
Monday, May 26, 2008
Well, then a man on the plane passed out. There wasn't a doctor around, so the staff contacted the ground crew and decided to get the man to a hospital as soon as possible. Our nearest stop was St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. So that's where we landed. However, the plane was too heavy so we had to dump some fuel. (Great.) We landed and learned that the man's state was self-inflicted - a bad mix of drugs and alcohol. Since it wasn't a natural cause, it was determined that his baggage needed to be removed from the aircraft... but this is a small airport and it would have to be done manually or something. We then learn that one of the engine valves is nonfunctioning, but the engineers suspect the computer is merely malfunctioning, so we taxi out to the runway to test it, but what do you know, it is broken. Then we learn that the flight crew is reaching their maximum legal limit of working hours and that therefore we'd have to stay in the city a while. Since the airport is so small, we can't access our checked baggage, and since this isn't a regular British Airways location, we just have to trust that the staff in London are doing their best to find connecting flights to make up for our lost connections.
We had to pass customs (another stamp in my passport!) and then we all got bussed to a nearby Holiday Inn. Food and a few short phone calls are being covered by the airline, but we basically just have to sit around until late tonight, when we all can get back on board and hopefully arrive at London tomorrow at 6:00am. Now, I was supposed to be in Stuttgart a day early so I could hang out and leisurely make my way to the location where I am to meet my program coordinator tomorrow. That's at 11:00am, so I can only hope that somehow I'll get there in time or nearly so.
By my next post, I'd better be in Germany...
